Denver’s at-large City Councilwoman Carol Boigon Thursday will announce she too is in the running for the Denver Mayor seat — a field getting as crowded as traffic through the Eisenhower Tunnel on a powder day.

Boigon joins a field of 12 others who say they intend to run in the first open election for mayor since 2003.

For perspective, seven candidates were on the ballot in 2003 with political neophyte John Hickenlooper and Auditor Don Mares having to face off in a June runoff election.

Hicknlooper, of course, won and now is preparing to be inaugurated on Jan. 11 as Colorado’s 42nd governor.

Today, James Mejia, the chief executive officer of the Denver Preschool Program, formally announced his candidacy.

Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and Mark Udall just called for bipartisan work to unearth a solution to the nation’s deficit.

Hours before a vote on extending Bush-era tax cuts, both Senators in floor speeches called the deficit crippling to the nation’s future. They both have joined a work group of Republicans and Democrats calling for a solution to the problem by the end of calendar year 2011.

Sens. Michael Bennet and Mark Udall are apart of a bipartisan group of Senators signing onto a resolution urging reform of the tax code and deficit reduction by 2011, their offices said today.

Besides Bennet and Udall, the team of Republican and Democrat U.S. Senators include Virginia Democrat Mark Warner and Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss.

The resolution calls for a comprehensive plan to address the deficit by the end of calendar year 2011 and reform of the tax code.

President Obama’s deficit reduction commission recently released 57 pages of recommendations of how to cut $4 trillion from the nation’s debt, but the commission will not send those recommendations to Congress because it fell short of full approval.

Bennet supported sending the recommendations to Congress for debate.

“Washington can no longer ignore what Coloradans already know: We need to move quickly to address an antiquated, burdensome tax code that doesn’t do enough to encourage innovation and job growth,” Bennet said in a statement Tuesday. “We also need to get our deficit under control for the sake of our country and our children.”

The group of senators will speak on the floor today at 2:15 p.m. mountain time about the resolution, which could be tacked onto the tax cuts bill or stand on its own.

Still unclear is what the group will do about raising the debt ceiling, which will likely be voted on by the U.S. Senate this spring.

Sen. Mark Udall said Monday that if asked today to raise the debt ceiling he would vote no until Congress gets a comprehensive plan together to reduce spending.

“It’s going to be another crossroads where I’m going to do everything I can,” Udall said. “My vote is not a given to raise the debt limit.”

PREZ PR PUSH: President Barack Obama extended his campaign on behalf of the compromise agreement on tax cuts with interviews on local television stations in the swing states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa and Ohio, Colorado, according to Bloomberg.

“Republicans made a decision that they would not extend tax cuts for middle class families, they would not extend unemployment insurance, they would not extend some of the critical business tax breaks we’ve put into place for things like clean energy unless they also got these tax breaks for wealthy individuals,” President Barack Obama said in his interview with 9News.

BATTLEGROUND: In New York this year, Tim Gill and other top gay donors produced a campaign that helped unseat three incumbent state legislators and opened a new phase in the politics of the gay rights movement that could have an even larger impact on the 2012 cycle, POLITICO reports. Under the New York model, well-funded gay rights groups will seek to make support for same-sex marriage as mandatory in blue America as allegiance to the Second Amendment is in red America — and to make opposition just as politically suicidal.

Lynn Bartels thinks politics is like sports but without the big salaries and protective cups. The Washington Post's "The Fix" blog has named her one of Colorado's best political reporters and tweeters.

Joey Bunch has been a reporter for 28 years, including the last 12 at The Denver Post. For various newspapers he has covered the environment, water issues, politics, civil rights, sports and the casino industry.